1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile communication terminal and, more particularly, to a controlling apparatus and method of a mobile communication terminal using electrostatic detection capable of sensing a malfunction through static electricity generated from the mobile communication terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in mobile communication terminals, a plurality of circuits are integrated to implement diverse supplementary functions in addition to a voice communication. With its size restricted, the mobile communication terminal is required to use small-sized circuits operating at a low current. Since those circuits have a weak electric immunity, they can malfunctioned even due to a weak electric impact.
In general, users of the mobile communication terminals carry the mobile terminal in pockets or bags and are surrounded by lots of various electronic devices, so the mobile terminal is exposed in an electric impact-ridden environment. One of the big and frequent electric impacts to the mobile terminal is caused by static electricity which generates thousands of volts of high level voltage instantaneously.
Influence of static electricity on the mobile terminal causes noise during a call communication, malfunction of internal circuits, no-sensing(screen-freezing) phenomenon from a display unit, and even a power-off phenomenon.
In order to prevent such an influence of static electricity on the internal circuit of the mobile terminal, the case of the mobile terminal is formed of a non-conductive material, but still a considerable amount of static electricity affects the internal circuits of the mobile terminal.
The most-influenced part of the mobile terminal by static electricity is the display unit. That is, the display unit is prone to be exposed to static electricity because it has a physically larger area than other parts and is sensitive to voltage, and there are many signal lines therein.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a structure of a controlling apparatus of a display unit of a mobile communication terminal in accordance with a related art.
As shown in FIG. 1, the controlling apparatus of a display unit of a mobile terminal comprises a display unit 20, a memory unit 30 storing screen data to be displayed on the display unit 20, and a controller 10 for providing screen data stored in the memory unit 30 to the display unit 20 and controlling the operation of the display unit 20.
The display unit 20 itself includes a driver (not shown), a graphic controller (not shown) and a memory (not shown), and the controller 10 controls the operation of the display unit 20 according to opening and closing of a folder or a flip.
When the graphic controller (not shown) of the display unit 20 receives an electric impact by static electricity, a no-sensing (that is, function-down) phenomenon occurs that the display unit 20 is stopped or its image is broken. The no-sensing phenomenon refers to every type of malfunction that may occur at the display unit 20, not a normal image output, including, for example, an electric impact to a construction element of the display unit 20 by static electricity, a malfunction of interface parts connected to a main controller of the mobile terminal, and any malfunction generated at other parts of the display unit 20.
In order to resolve such a no-sensing phenomenon generated at the display unit 20, the display unit 20 can be forcefully reset through the operation of closing and opening of the folder or the flip of the mobile terminal. Namely, the operation of the display unit 20 is stopped when the folder or the flip is closed, and a display content of a screen of the display unit is renewed by the operation of opening the folder or the flip.
The controller 10 of the related mobile terminal is not able to recognize occurrence of static electricity, so it fails to recognize the no-sensing state of the display unit 20 due to static electricity.
Thus, since the controlling apparatus of the display unit of the mobile communication terminal cannot recognize a malfunction generated at the display unit by the influence of static electricity, a user must personally recognize a malfunction and reset the mobile terminal manually.
In addition, with the controlling apparatus of the display unit of the related mobile communication terminal, the user could mistakenly recognize such a no-sensing phenomenon generated at the display unit as a breakdown of the mobile terminal, causing a problem that a reliability of the mobile terminal is degraded.